Saturday, February 25, 2017

A few words about NBC's giant parabola

After about 1990, game shows seemed to move away from one of the common elements of many of the best ones — a giant, flashy set piece (think Press Your Luck, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune). But NBC's big-money spectacle The Wall, while stealing a simple game concept from another show, gets the set piece right in a big way. Not only is its prop the centerpiece of the game, it impressively serves as a massive TV screen where Rice-A-Roni would probably love to be plugged as a parting gift. The Q&A aspect of the show is certainly nothing special, and it seems a bit absurd to watch someone answer two out of six questions correctly and walk away with more than a million dollars. I could also do without the sappy husband-and-wife contestant stories. But, in the end, everybody loves a little Plinko.

Credo

About The Warmer Side of Cool

With reviews and commentary on music, movies, TV and such, this blog is a chronicle of my pop culture obsessions. My tastes are very much rooted in growing up in the 1980s with things like synthpop music, Rubik’s Cubes and Star Wars. I like dark, thoughtful entertainment like Dexter and the Battlestar Galactica remake. The blog name (formerly "Jeblog") is inspired by and a tribute to Wang Chung's song of the same name, which beautifully laments life on "the warmer side," where I often find my own tastes. I am a journalist of 20 years in northeast Mississippi.